BIC Day!

Unfortunately I am going to give up my dream of staying caught up in order to give this day the post it deserves :/ So bear with me... Anyways, Sunday ended up being one of the best days I've had so far, and you're about to find out why!. I woke up very early because in order to get to the BIC church I had to travel to basically the other side of Tokyo. It took about 1 1/2 hours and I had to change trains 5 times! I was so proud that I made it there, although I missed one of the trains I was supposed to get on by 1 minute, so I ended up being like 10 minutes later than I was hoping. So I met with Nobue in the station and her brother-in-law gave us a ride to the church. We were a bit early so we took that opportunity to meet the pastor, Tojo-sensei, and his wife. Tojo-sensei's parents were the caretakers of a really big and famous shrine, a job he was supposed to take over. When he became a Christian in college, he got a lot of backlash from his family :/ Really cool old guy. We had communion together and also water-less footwashing, a.k.a praying over each other's feet. Such a neat idea! It was during this time that I realized that the two women behind me were speaking in Spanish. After the service ended I decided to go talk to them...we ended up talking for a little over 30 minutes. One of the women is from Chile and has been living in Japan with her husband, son, and daughter for about 5 years, so she can speak a reasonable amount of Japanese. The other woman was from Peru, and spoke very very little Japanese. Both of them were so lovely and prayed for me. I got contact info for both of them so I hope to keep in touch :) The church ate obento together and I was able to talk to a family there who had 5 kids (super unusual, especially in Tokyo) and who are moving to Indiana next year so that the dad can go to seminary. Before leaving I exchanged contact info with a couple of people so I hope to keep in touch :) Here are some pictures from the morning:

Afterwards Nobue and I went to a cafe and talked for a while. I told her about Roxbury and she wants to come someday! That would be so amazing...she knows a lot about the BIC in Pennsylvania and places like Messiah college. Over the course of our conversation we discovered that we both know the Deyhles (the people who started the India table at Roxbury) Except she knew them BEFORE they even went to India! wowza. Talk about connections! Anywho, after that we parted ways and I headed to Roppongi for church round 2. Unfortunately on our way to church it started pouring so we showed up a bit late and rather wet. The good news is, I feel like I'm understanding more of the sermon every week (a.k.a going from like 5% to 7%) We had our usual tea/chatty fun times and then headed home, feeling rather pooped. Philipa ended up talking to a young guy on the train and was able to share what we're doing in Japan and just get to know him. You can pray that God will use little connections like this to plant seeds for people to be receptive to the Gospel in the future. As for some other prayer requests, you can pray that 1. I can get some rest. I've been totally exhausted today due to two nights of slumber parties with a visiting friend (more of that in another post :D) and one night of Insomnia Strikes Back. Really haven't been feeling well and struggling to get through the day 2. That I can get everything I need for college prepared. I'm starting to feel a little stressed about making sure everything is put together before I have to go, so prayers would be appreciated. 3. That many opportunities to build relationships will come in these last couple of weeks that I'm here. Alright, that's all for this post! Hopefully I will get around to posting an up-to-date update by tomorrow. Thanks for reading!